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Education

PhD University of California, Santa Barbara (Sociology)MA University of California, Santa Barbara (Sociology)BA Honors University of York, England (Politics)

Bio

Dr. Brotherton grew up in the East End of London, England where he worked in various blue-collar jobs while organizing labor and youth. He came to the United States in the 1980’s, working toward his Ph.D. degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara while teaching public high school in San Francisco. Dr. Brotherton gained his doctorate in Sociology in 1992 and began work on street gang subcultures at U.C. Berkeley in the same year. In 1994, Dr. Brotherton came to John Jay College of Criminal Justice where he continued his research and teaching on youth resistance, marginalization, and deportation co-founding the Street Organization Project in 1997. He has received numerous research grants from both private and public agencies and has published widely in journals, books, newspapers and magazines. In 2003 and 2004 Dr. Brotherton co-organized the first academic conferences on deportation in the Caribbean and the United States respectively. He received the Praxis award for contributions to social justice from the Critical Criminology Section of the American Society of Criminology in 2015, named Critical Criminologist of the Year in 2011 and won the Choices award for "Keeping Out the Other" in 2008. He has also been nominated for the 2011 George Orwell Prize in England and the C.Wright Mills Award in the United States. Among his recent books are: Immigration Policy in the Age of Punishment: Detention, Deportation and Border Control with Phil Kretsedemas (New York: Columbia 2017); Las Pandillas Como Movimiento Social with Luis Barrios (University of Central America Press 2016); Youth Street Gangs: A Critical Appraisal (Routledge 2015); Banished to the Homeland: Dominican Deportees and Their Stories of Exile,with Luis Barrios (Columbia 2011);Keeping Out The Other: A Critical Introduction to Immigration Control, edited with P. Kretsedemas (Columbia 2009); and The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation: Street Politics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang,with Luis Barrios (Columbia 2004). Dr. Brotherton is the former chair of the Dept. of Sociology at John Jay College and the Director of the Social Change and Transgressive Studies Project (http://social change.org) He is also the founding editor of the "Studies in Transgression" book series at Temple University Press. His current research projects include an evaluation study of the Credibe Messengers and Mentors Initiative at the Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services in Washington D.C., a criminological investigation of citizenship security in Ecuador funded by the Guggenheim Foundation, a collaborative critical ethnographic study of immigration removal in New York City called the Social Anatomy of the Deportation Regime and with Rafa Gude is completing the International Handbook of Critical Gang Studies to be published by Routledge in 2020.

Course Taught

Graduate Studies (Graduate Center)

Deportation and the Ethnographic Imagination

Sociology of Youth Subculures and Social Resistance

Undergraduate Studies

Gangs and Transnationalism

The Criminology of Deportation

Global Social Movements

Scholarly Work

Books:

Brotherton, D. (editor and contributor) and P. Kretsedemas. 2017. . New York: Columbia University Press. Immigration Policy in the Age of Punishment: Detention, Deportation, Border Control.

Brotherton, D. and L. Barrios. 2004.The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation: Street Politics and the Transformation of aNew York Gang. New York: Columbia University Press. (Reviewed in Theoretical Criminology, Latino Studies, Chronicle of Higher Education, Social Work Today, Youth Today, Choices, Sociology and Social Welfare, Socialism and Democracy).

"The Contradictions of Suppression: Notes from a Study of Approaches to Gangs in Three Public High Schools (Lead article)," Urban Review, 28(2), pp. 95-120. (Also selected for Rutgers University Special Collection on Criminal Justice).

Brotherton, D. 1996.

"Smartness, Toughness and Autonomy: Drug Use in the Contexts of Gang FemaleDelinquency," Journal of Drug Issues, 26(1), pp. 261-277. (Reprinted in In Her Own Words: Women Offenders' Views on Crime and Victimization An Anthology Edited by Leanne F. Alarid and P. Cromwell. London: Oxford University Press].

“The Criminalization of Zucotti Park and Lessons from the UK Riots,” in “Riots and Social Movements” in Social Movements in the Neo-Liberal Era edited by David Pritchard and Frances May. London: Palgrave, pp. 285-295.

Brotherton, D. 2014.

“The Theater of Cruelty and the Permanent Exile of Immigrants” in The Criminalization of Immigration: Contexts and Consequences edited by Alissa Ackerman and Rich Furman. Carolina Academic Press. Pp.31-49.

Brotherton, D. 2013.

“The Social Bulimia of Forced Repatriation: A Case Study of Dominican Deportees” in The Borders of Punishment: Criminal Justice, Citizenship and Social Exclusion edited by Katje Frank Aas and Mary Bosworth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.201-217.

Brotherton, D. 2012.

“Social Constructionism and the Gang” in The Gang Manual edited by Amir Rostami. Stockholm: University of Stockholm Press, pp. 65-82.

“Introduction” and “Youth Resistance and the Street Organization in Late Modern New York” in D. Brotherton and M. Flynn (editors) Globalizing the Streets:Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Youth, Marginalization and Resistance, New York: Columbia University Press.

Brotherton, D. 2008.

“Exiling New Yorkers,” in Keeping Out The Other: Immigration Control in the Post-9/11

Era edited by P. Kretsedemas and D. Brotherton. New York: Columbia University Press.

Brotherton, D. 2006.

“Towards the Gang as a Social Movement,” in Gangs in the Global City, edited by J.Hagedorn. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Brotherton, D. 2004

“What Happened to the Pathological Gang: Issues and Findings from a Case Study of the Latin Kings and Queens of New York,” in Cultural Criminology Unleashed, edited by J.Ferrell, K. Hayward, W. Morrison and M. Presdee. London: Cavendish.

Brotherton, D. 2003.

“The Role of Education in the Reform of Street Organizations in New York City” in L.Kontos, D. Brotherton and L. Barrios (editors), pp.136-157, “Gangs and Society: Alternative Perspectives,” New York: Columbia University Press.

Brotherton, D. and S. Tosh. 2017. "The Sociology of Vindictiveness and the Deportee," Immigration Policy in the Age of Punishment edited by D. Brotherton and P. Kretsedemas. New York: Columbia.

Brotherton, D. and C. Salazar. 2003.

“Pushes and Pulls in the Resistance Trajectories of the Latin Queens,” in L. Kontos, D. Brotherton and L. Barrios (editors), pp.183-209, “Gangs and Society: Alternative Perspectives,” New York: Columbia University Press.

Brotherton, D. 2001 (revised 2nd edition), 1998 (1st edition).

"From Gangs to Street Organizations: The Changing Characteristics of Street Subcultures in New York City," Crime and Justice in New York City, edited by A. Karmen. New York: McGraw Hill.

Brotherton, D. 1994.

"Who Do You Claim?: Gang Formations and Rivalry in an Inner City High School",

Research Summary

The Dominican Deportation Project is an ongoing study of pre- and post-deportation experiences of Dominican "deportable aliens" through the lens of critical sociology and criminology. This project started in 2002 and is one of the longest studies of the historical causes, social processes and multivalent effects of deportation on a sub-population in the U.S. and the Caribbean.

Soxial Anatomy of the Deportation Regime in New York City - 2017 -

The first inter-disciplinary case study research into the organization, practices and consequences of a deportation regime in a major U.S. city.

Social Inclusion, Gangs and Homicide Reduction in Ecuador - 2016-2020

A multi-year study in Ecuador of the only street gang legalization policy to be implemented by a national government and how it relates to the most sustained drop in homicide in the world.

A 3-year evaluation of the most far-reaching implementation of a credible messenger mentorship program in which formerly incarcerated members of the community along with other longstanding community members are recruited into a specially designed holistic initiative to help committed and post-committed youth successfully complete their jounrey of rehabilitation.